The Bullroarer Atlas

LEVINE1966-001 - primary ethnography

Gusii (Abagusii; Kisii)

Nyansongo, Kisii highlands, Nyanza Province (now Kisii and Nyamira counties), western Kenya - East Africa

Restricted

A Nandi bull-roarer on a twisted hide thong (British Museum Af1908,0723.86).
Representative — not this record’s object. · A Nandi bull-roarer on a twisted hide thong (British Museum Af1908,0723.86) · CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Image source

eng'iti enene ('Big Beast of Outside'); enyabububu (the beast itself, onomatopoeic) English

Source term: bull-roarer

eng'iti enene - 'Big Beast of Outside', the Gusii name for the bullroarer itself. enyabububu - the swallowing beast whose voice it is; Mayer calls the name onomatopoeic. ogosicha - 'taming the Beast', the act of sounding it. Distinguish eng'iti enene ya nyomba, 'Big Beast of the House', which is a friction drum, not a roarer.

A Gusii boy was circumcised and then shut away, and while he was healing the beast came for him. It is called enyabububu, the name an imitation of the sound it makes, and it swallows initiates; the men call it eng'iti enene, the Big Beast of Outside. It is a flat piece of wood under a foot long, drilled at one end and twirled on a cord, and swinging it is called ogosicha - taming the Beast. Once the novices have been let in on it they interrogate it, and it answers them: e-e-e for yes, yaya for no. Philip Mayer, who watched this in the 1940s, was firm that frightening the boys was not the point - the beast is brought in as soon as possible after the cutting, he wrote, to entertain them and take their minds off the pain. Outside the hut a second roarer was going the whole time, and with it word to the women and children to keep away.

Certainly it is not expected to terrify the novices seriously... the best thing is to introduce it as soon as possible after the mysteries, so as to entertain and distract from the pain.

Mayer, "Gusii Initiation Ceremonies," JRAI 83 (1953), p. 20.
Object
Flat wood, about half an inch thick and under a foot long, drilled at one end and twirled on a cord (Mayer 1953, p. 20). Mayer names a second thing under the same beast-name - eng'iti enene ya nyomba, 'Big Beast of the House' - but that is a buried pot with a wet skin sounded by rubbing, a friction drum, and it is deliberately excluded from this row.
Function
Male initiation. The roarer is the voice of enyabububu, the beast that swallows the novices; sounding it is ogosicha, 'taming the Beast.' The initiated interrogate it and it answers - the Gusii affirmative e-e-e for yes, yaya for no. A second roarer sounds outside the hut, with an announcement warning women and children off. Mayer is explicit that terrifying the novices is not the point.
Map confidence
medium - Nyansongo lies in the Kisii highlands; anchored near Kisii town.
Source location
Page references

Mayer 1953, JRAI 83, p. 20; LeVine and LeVine 1966, ch. 16

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